Screening & Live Event
The Workers Cup
Saturday, June 9, 2018, 1:30 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Bartos Screening Room
Hosted by community partner Emerald Isle Immigration Center (EIIC)
Dir. Adam Sobel. 2017, 92 mins. Digital projection. As the 2018 World Cup begins in Russia, construction is well underway for the 2022 edition in Qatar, where 1.6 million migrant workers labor and live in the shadows of the same buildings they have been imported to make. By day these men sweat in perilous conditions to build the venues for World Cup; by night they compete in a “workers welfare” soccer tournament, playing in the same stadiums that will one day host the world’s greatest players. The Workers Cup follows one team of men from Nepal, India, Ghana, and Kenya whose only common ground is their love for soccer and their desires to earn better lives. Each match offers them a momentary escape from the homesickness and isolation they endure as the lowest class in the world’s richest country. Adam Sobel's penetrating and deeply humane documentary reveals an ad-hoc community of individuals pursuing universal dreams who are nevertheless systematically constrained, and celebrates a sport that unites the world yet subjugates the very people who struggle to make its greatest event possible.
Emerald Isle Immigration Center (EIIC), a Museum community partner, will host a panel discussion after the screening with The Workers Cup director Adam Sobel in conversation with Queens representatives: Rasel K. Rahman, Director, Queens Community Service Center New York City Commission on Human Rights; Kelly Becker Smith, EIIC Attorney/Citizenship Program Manager; Victoria Ceron, EIIC Citizenship Program Assistant; and community members Olga Espinal and Ray Garcia.
Opening Night Film of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.Tickets: $15 ($7 Museum members / free for Silver Screen members and above). Order tickets online. (Members may contact [email protected] with questions regarding online reservations.)
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